Text toolbar rewrite

The text toolbar has become a monstrosity. This page is for discussing how to rework the toolbar into something more usable.

Issues

• Text toolbar shows too many options.
• Line height control is confusing.

Ideas

• Utilize "hamburger" menus to hide less used options:
  • Either: Put all "overflow" options in one big menu.
    • Jabiertxof try it and is problematic with windows resize, knowing widget positions and size when is needed, we can remove the overflow after windows is created, removing widgets while fit in previous size, but he is not sure how it works with maximized windows and window resizes...
  • Or: Put options in to several menus by a Popover widget
    • Glyph tweaking (rotating, etc.). (Maybe not convenient.)
    • Writing modes (vertical/horzontal, right-to-left, etc.). (These are usually set once and then forgotten.)
• Move some of the options to mini-dialogs.
  • This could be useful, for example, where you want the controls readily available (like the glyph positioning ones). But not sure how to handle windows decorations.
  • Mini-dialogs allow more text to explain what is happening.
  • Should work well when we move to the tabbed dialog framework.
• Set a default line spacing option, require user to use hamburger menu (or mini-dialog) to change option.
  • Which option should be the default?

Mock-ups

Line spacing

Line spacing is complicated:

• The minimum line-height is set by the 'font-size' and 'line-height' properties on the text element.
• 'line-height' and/or 'font-size' can be set on any tspan element.
• 'line-height' % values and pure numeric values have different meanings:
  • %: 'line-height' computed values are determined by the element where the 'line-height' property is set. Once set, the computed value is inherited by all child elements.
  • Number: 'line-height' computed value is determined anew for each child element using the child element's font-size and line-height values (which can be inherited).

Inkscape has four options for determining 'line-height' behavior. Three of the options enforce certain rules:

1. Adaptive: 'line-height' is set to zero on a text element, this allows the computed line-height to be any value in child elements.
2. Minimum: 'line-height' value is set to some non-zero value on text element. This sets a minimum line-height computed value. Line spacing can be larger but not smaller.
3. Even: 'line-height' value is set on the text element. The computed line-height value is fixed, regardless of font-size in child elements (provided line-height unit is not '%', 'em', or 'ex').
4. Adjustable: Inkscape enforces no restrictions on 'line-height' and 'font-size' values. The user must fully understand how 'line-height' and 'font-size' interact with inheritance.

This proposal suggests making the selection behavior for font-size and line-height work like it does for all other properties:

• If there is no selection (just a blinking cursor), font-size and line-height entries apply to the entire text.
• If there is a selection (some text high-lighted), font-size and line-height entries apply to only the selection.

The toolbar would be altered as follows:

• The "Outer/Inner" button will be removed.
• The "Line Spacing" menu will be replaced by a hamburger button that opens a dialog which will display the outer (paragraph) values for font-size and line-height, along with some text that changes depending on which method is selected.

Text direction